Homemade Sticky Buns

I was craving sticky buns for the longest time. Every morning this past week, I’d wake up with sticky buns in the back of my mind (or right at the front). Rather than buying some, I made them from scratch, and I found that they were not that difficult to make!

I pretty much followed the recipe on Simply recipes. But I ran into an obstacle, which you most likely won’t. I used some light brown sugar that was already opened for I don’t even know how long, so of course it had turned into a solid rock. (I should have asked my friends who are geology majors for some tools to break it apart). I first tried hitting the sugar on my cutting board, slowly chipping away the large mass of sugar. But I saw this would take way too much time and effort. I finally decided to add a little hot water to the sugar, and this really helped melt the sugar. I then added the ground cinnamon. (So my brown sugar cinnamon filling looked like molasses).

I want to say that it’s not laziness that has stopped me from making sticky buns but actually the amount of butter that is required to make them. Much to my delight, I found that I only needed to use 1 stick of butter rather than 1 1/2 sticks. And the buns still came out deliciously despite using 1/3 less butter. I think what actually permitted me to use less butter was my molasses mixture. Because rather than my cinnamon and brown sugar filling be dry (like the recipe called for), it was wet from the warm water I added. The wetness of the mixture made it spread easily on the rolled out dough. (Rather than slathering the dough with butter to let the dry cinnamon brown sugar mixture dissolve. So I cut out the 4 tbsp of butter in the filling).

And my craving is satisfied!